The first year of my marriage, I had one primary prayer:

“God, please change Lance.  Amen.”

Who needs a long, drawn out request?  I just knew that if God would fix my husband, all of our problems would be solved.

Yeah…it turns out that wasn’t accurate.  At all.

That was the prayer of a girl who was convinced that all I needed to do to make my marriage better was to say a prayer, prop my feet up and watch God do His thing…with Lance.

Yeah…that wasn’t accurate either.

1 Samuel 17:45 Then David said to the Philistine {Goliath}, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down...that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”48 When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.

You know the story and you gotta love David’s trash talkin’.  (And this excerpt didn’t even include the part about cutting off Goliath’s head and the plans he had for the Philistine army which involved dead bodies and wild animals…eww.)

The phrase, “The battle is the Lord’s” , is something we hear often in Christian circles and it is unquestionably true.  But notice that while the battle is the Lord’s, someone still had to strike the giant down.  

Could God have done it on His own?  Absolutely – we’ve seen that happen too.  But more often than not, He uses people…from a shepherd boy like David to a woman with a tent peg (Jael in Judges) to a committed daughter-in-law (Ruth) and even a boy with a sack lunch…to accomplish His will on the Earth.

Did you notice that last line? “David ran quickly toward the battle line…”

David was able to act in confidence because he knew the battle was the Lord’s BUT he recognized that Goliath had been delivered into HIS hand…so now it was David’s move.

46cf7f52-e049-4033-9125-6ad0c9a1e294_1.c3ad1d6c875853a980ae60a9e7c3455bWhat giant are you facing? Yes, the battle is the Lord’s but what move do you need to make?  

Could that new job come looking for you?  Sure but you could put your resume out there.  I know you are waiting on that friend to call you back but maybe you could call her first and try to make amends. If your finances are weighing you down, an unexpected check in the mail would be awesome but until then, you could say no to Amazon Prime and say yes to spending less, saving more.

When Lance & I share our testimony, he says this, “…Maybe some of you feel that prayer and faith alone will magically make your marriage great.  But our truth is that prayer is the easy part – it only reveals the things we need to change.  Our truth is found in James 2 (MSG):  “Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words, but never DO anything?  Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?”  See faith is easy but putting your faith into action takes hustle, grit, failure and forgiveness.”  

Striking down the giant in our marriage meant changing the focus of my prayer to God fixing ME.  It required that we stopped expecting perfection.  It involved preferring each other when we really preferred to have our own way. It meant apologizing sooner and forgiving even when we didn’t forget.

Women of God and my fellow giant slayers – we can trust our God in every battle knowing that He will do His part…just don’t forget to do your part too.  ~Anu

by anitha

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